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Signature Sounds
Jeffrey Foucault – Horse Latitudes (Signature Sounds)
A new album from Jeffrey Foucault is always a good thing, especially as “Horse Latitudes” is a solo outing of original songs, his first since 2006’s “Ghost Repeater”. Foucault is a songwriter of indisputable depth and subtlety with a talent for dropping lines into songs that can stop listeners in their tracks, but he’s equally adept at using his voice to convey mood and atmosphere. The title track, with its open sea, death and redemption imagery, is all the more arresting for his stylized delivery, in conjunction with Eric Heywood’s mournful pedal steel and electric guitar. Following track, the short and bittersweet “Pretty Girl In A Small Town”, turns up the volume and Foucault asks: "Tell me who bent the branch inside of you?"
www.jeffreyfoucault.com
Dennis Crommett – In The Buffalo Surround (Signature Sounds / Soft Alarm)
Winterpills guitarist Dennis Crommett (he also fronts indie-rockers Spanish For Hitchhiking, and calls himself City Of Domes when he makes electronic pop) has borrowed his album’s title “In the Buffalo Surround” from a book by Mari Sandoz entitled “These Were the Sioux”. The book, a non-fiction historical account of Native Americana, probably shares much of the same scope and wilderness ambiance that Crommett has instilled into his record. Nature and its mysteries provide a lyrical core to much of the material, and Crommett has wrapped his words in classic alt. country and Americana styles. Fans of Neil Young, Jay Farrar and Rich Hopkins should take note.
www.denniscrommett.com
Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers – Starlight Hotel (Signature Sounds)
Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers’ self-titled debut from 2009 earned much praise from the Americana press, and was duly declared one of No Depression’s albums of the year. Happily there’s little sign of a sophomore slump as Muth and her band consolidate their position with a collection of heartfelt, occasionally forlorn songs, though with enough wit on display to dispel concerns of excessive melancholy. Opening track “I’ve Been Gone” finds them at their most jaunty, as the band apply a Tex-Mex lick to Muth’s tale of love lost and found. “Harvest Moon Blues” reveals Muth’s inner Emmylou, and “If I Can’t Trust You With A Quarter (How Can I Trust You With My Heart) indicates a first class degree has been obtained in Nashville Country Phrasing (University of Tennessee, circa 1973).
www.zoemuth.com
All: www.signaturesounds.com
Rob F.
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